Notorious

Doesn't look at all Great Pyrenees to me, but I'm human.

Ah ok. She wasn't at all afraid of them. Although at first she did want to eat the horses. She has always been very obedient. The explanation I received from him was basically shed soft meaning she's going to be very easy to teach and very easy to control. Here's some pics from today.

Me and Rain had our first herding lesson today. (Instinct test) She picked it up and started chasing the sheep and turning them within the first 5 minutes. Our trainer said she did very very well and is very soft and should be very easy to train. Most importantly she had a blast. On to my question can somebody explain the differences more between like "softness" and other things like that? I'm sorry totally new to the herding game, and don't know all the details.

Thanks guys. I don't plan on her ever being farther then 20 feet. Ill probably teach her to do it in the heel position. She has a 100% recall and has no problems listening no matter the situation. However coyotes are notorious for luring dog to the pack and killing then as a pack. She doesn't have much of a chase instinct unless its a ball. I can hit prairie dogs at 60 yards 9/10 times with my bow. If a coyote ran at her it'd e dropped before it opened its mouth. Not to mention my boerboel is always by me and her. He'd obviously notice the scent of the threat. Id train my boerboel for scent work as well, but he likes dragging around my cart too much. He always likes to be strapped into the thing. He likes to haul stuff in it. Even my kids haha. She understands what a rabbit is now an whenever she spots one she lays down towards it. Now I gotta work on her following a trail cause the rabbits are plentiful and I know where they like to be.

They're also very agile, fast, active and have good endurance. Think of a 150 lb border collie, but tanked with muscle and a guard dog.

Tea and the few that gave relevant answers thank you. Tea boerboels are a breed of dog from Africa. Also known as an African mastiff. They are known to single handedly take down leopards. They are the only dog bred purely as a guard dog. They are also not aggressive, however if someone acts aggressively or if the owner/pack member feels threatened a 150-200 lb boerboel will not hesitate to take someone/animal out. They instinctively always walk between you and possible threats. In Africa their job is to guard the homestead from lions hyenas, leopards you name it. They guard sheep children other dogs and their owners. They dominate weight pullin competitions. I've seen boerboels pull upwards of 8000 pounds.

Actually it's been completely off topic. I simply asked if it could be done. I didn't ask for a lecture. It's a simple yes a border collie would have no problem learning how to track. Or no it would be very hard/not possible. People are to wrapped up in what they would do. Not what other people have to do. If you had pests losing you thousands and thousands of dollars, and you had a dog to help eliminate the problem you do what you gotta do. For anyone who really would like an answer with out being lectured by information that is irrelevant to the question. I think it's possible as after only a few hours my border collie has started to detect rabbits. She's also doing a good job of saying inside of about 20 yards of me which I have taught her since she was a puppy.

Because my border collie comes with me when I hunt and stays by my side as does my boerboel. I would just like to make them more useful. My boerboel helps me haul game as he loves to pull. And my border collie will fetch rabbits or my arrows. If I can now train her to sniff out the area of the target animal it would be helpful for me and rewarding for her.

She works stock 4 days a week agility once a week and hikes with me several miles a day. It's all for her. She comes with me all the time. I don't want her to corner animals. I simply want her to sniff them out. And as far as anything touching her you must have never met a boerboel.

I don't expect my border collie to find them with out me. I want her to be by my side. She's gotta earn her food just like everyone else. Besides she doesn't need to. I do just fine calling them in. I just think it might be fun for her. I don't plan on having her kill animals or even be part of the kill simply stay close and sniff em out.

So cute haha.

Also we only do stock work to keep her busy, I have no use for the herding skills other then it's fun for her. However I have a lot of friends who need a lot of stuff removed from their ranches. Having my border collie sniff out a coyote den (of course companiened by my 180 lb boerboel who makes short work of coyotes) would be a lot easier for me to take care of the problem.

Thanks for the reply, I was just using deer a an example. I was actually more along the lines going to try to train her to snif out small game I.e coyotes, foxes, rabbits, bobcat, and raccoon.

Is it possible/plausible for me to teach my border collie to track/herd deer and other hunt able big/small game?

Haha I do pretty much anything it takes to make her happy.